Nearly 50 Percent of Gay Men with HIV Don’t Know They’re Infected

From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Website:

CDC estimates that more than one million people are living with HIV in the United States. One in five (21%) of those people living with HIV is unaware of their infection. Despite increases in the total number of people living with HIV in the US in recent years, the annual number of new HIV infections has remained relatively stable. However, new infections continue at far too high a level, with an estimated 56,300 Americans becoming infected with HIV each year.

More than 18,000 people with AIDS still die each year in the US. Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM)† are strongly affected and represent the majority of persons who have died. Through 2007, more than 576,000 people with AIDS in the US have died since the epidemic began.

By risk group, gay, bisexual, and other MSM of all races remain the population most severely affected by HIV.

MSM account for more than half (53%) of all new HIV infections in the U.S. each year, as well as nearly half (48%) of people living with HIV.

While CDC estimates that MSM account for just 4% of the US male population aged 13 and older, the rate of new HIV diagnoses among MSM in the US is more than 44 times that of other men and more than 40 times that of women.

White MSM account for the largest number of annual new HIV infections of any group in the US, followed closely by black MSM.

MSM is the only risk group in the U.S. in which new HIV infections have been increasing since the early 1990s.